


Get Some Rest, Damnit

by Leen_Moufti



Category: Axiom Verge (Video Game)
Genre: Ficlet, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Oneshot, Physics Bros, Self-Doubt, We all know that one mom friend, mom friend, sleep-deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 05:50:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16592009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leen_Moufti/pseuds/Leen_Moufti
Summary: Trace tends to overwork himself. A lot.Hammond hates it.





	Get Some Rest, Damnit

" _Trace_."

Trace turned his attention away from the glowing monitor of his desktop to face Hammond. He leaned back in his swivel chair as his eyes slowly blinked to readjust themselves to the lack of bright light emanating from the screen, and he scratched his itching neck, providing some respite to it from the strands of his chocolate-brown hair, which was loosely tied by a red scrunchie, brushing up against it.

"Yeah, Hamm?" he yawned, reaching for a nearly-empty coffee mug that left a noticeable ring on his work-desk.

He took a short sip of it, and frowned at the bitter taste of the lukewarm liquid.

Hammond stood directly in front of Trace, with his arms crossed and a very unimpressed frown plastered on his face. He regarded Trace disapprovingly and pointed at him as he spoke.

"You. Sleep. _Now_."

Trace raised his eyebrows with half-closed eyes and his general expression very indifferent.

"Excuse me?" he asked, parting his lips as he raised the mug to them, only to have it snatched out of his hand before it could even make contact with them.

Hammond raised the mug high above his head as Trace feebly made a grab for it without leaving the swivel chair.

"What you need is sleep. Specifically at least thirty-six hours of it to make up for all the all-nighters you've pulled in this week alone."

"What I need is coffee," Trace mumbled, standing up to snatch the mug back before flopping back down onto the seat.

He looked down at it, and frowned at the lack of caffeinated brew. Before he turned his attention back to the complicated algorithms displayed on the monitor, he silently passed the mug back to Hammond with a clear request.

"Yeah, no."

Trace was too focused on his work to hear that, and continued typing away on his keyboard. He stopped at an algorithm he could barely decipher, and disorientedly noted that his work desk seemed to be getting farther away from view, until he realized Hammond was pulling his chair away from the desk.

"H-hey!" Trace stammered, planting his feet on the ground firmly and causing Hammond to stumble backwards and let go.

Hammond's brow furrowed and he crossed his arms again as Trace gripped the edge of his desk and pulled himself towards it.

He pressed enter on the keyboard and peered at what remained on the screen, before slumping down in his seat and rubbing his eyes in discomfort.

Gah, he needed his glasses. Which he hadn't put on all day for whatever stupid reason he couldn't fathom.

Trace reached for his glasses, only to find they weren't in any of his coat pockets.

He dug in his pants pockets but found they weren't in there either.

_Where the hell- wait._

"Damn it," Trace uttered as he stood up from the swivel chair, which noticeably creaked as it slowly rose, free from his weight.

Hammond watched as Trace wordlessly slipped on a pair of boots and dug through his pockets, searching for something as he walked to the door.

"Where are you going?"

"Car," Trace flatly responded, pulling a pair of keys from his pants pocket before swinging the keyring on a finger.

"What?! Why?!"

"My eyes hurt. I left my glasses in the car."

Trace's wrist was forcibly yanked to the side as he touched the doorknob. Before he could yank it back in retaliation, the keys were forced out of his other hand and flung to the other side of the room.

"Hammond, what gives?" Trace spluttered.

Hammond looked completely flabbergasted as he looked into Trace's hazel-brown eyes. He placed himself between Trace and the exit, shivering as he pressed his back against the cold, metal door.

He tried not to let this be too noticeable as he stared Trace dead in the eyes as he pointed to a window and said, "Do you not see all the snow outside?! Or hear the wind?!"

"I do, I do," Trace muttered, only now taking notice of the harsh weather and wind sounding like it would shatter the glass at any given moment. "I just need to get out, grab my glasses, and-"

"Are you out of your mind? You'll freeze!"

"No. I'm just a bit tired," Trace nonchalantly answered, taking far too long to open his eyes after blinking once.

"Trace, you're completely _exhausted_."

"No, I'm n- * _yawn_ *- ot," Trace mumbled, nearly dropping his head onto Hammond's shoulder.

Hammond stood still as Trace lightly snored on his shoulder before pushing him away gently and demanding, "You are going to shut off that computer and sleep on that chair. Now."

Trace shot a longing glance at the monitor and the pixelated characters it proudly displayed before his attention snapped back to the shorter man in front of him.

"But I have to get this done."

"You can finish it later. When you don't look like a dying panda."

Trace snorted before letting out a very sleep-deprived giggle.

"A dying _what_?"

"Have you not looked in the mirror? You look like a dying panda with those bags under your eyes."

"I can take care of that later. Look, I just need to get this done. Just- just give me your glasses."

Hammond looked at Trace's outstretched hand, noting the prominent writer's bump on his middle finger.

"First of all, no. You have a specific prescription; you wanna go blind? Second, these, right here," Hammond pointed at the goggles he wore. "These are safety goggles. They won't do a damn thing."

Trace's shoulders noticeably sagged. He looked at the computer once more before saying out loud, "I just need to get this one thing done, or else everything else I've done won't matter."

Hammond froze and internally shut down. Was that something Trace meant to say out loud, or was it just a thought he had blabbered out?

" _What_?"

"Oh, you heard that?"

"'Course I did; you said it out loud. The hell does that mean, exactly?"

"Oh, uh-" Trace stammered on his words. Either the man was venting this out on purpose, or he was too loopy from lack of actual sleep that his verbal filter was practically nonexistent. He continued to blabber after a moment of hesitation.

"I just need to finish this. If I don't, I might get in trouble for it, or worse, fired- oh God, what if I get fired-"

He grabbed at his overgrown sideburns and began to tug at them as he rambled only semi-coherently, and his shoulders tensed.

"Trace."

"If that happens, I don't know what I'll do-"

"Trace."

"I might, actually- What if I'm not good eno-"

"TRACE!"

Trace felt Hammond grab his shoulders tightly. He looked into the shorter man's grey-blue eyes with his bloodshot hazel ones, and they exchanged a few moments of silence.

"Trace," Hammond cooed warmly, gripping his friend's shuddering shoulders. "Take a deep breath, and repeat after me: You're going to be fine."

"I- I'm going to be f-fine," Trace followed suit, still shuddering.

"You're not going to get fired."

"I'm... not going to get fired."

"Okay, that's good. Now, what I want you to do is take another deep breath."

Trace took in another deep breath, his chest slowly rising before falling.

"And repeat after me again: You're going to be fine. You're not going to get fired."

"I'm... going to be fine... I'm not going to get... f-fired..."

Hammond ever-so-slowly let go of Trace's shoulders, ready to gauge his reaction. Trace's shoulders relaxed, and he shuddered less. He took in one last deep breath through his nose, before exhaling softly through his mouth.

"Feel better?"

"A- A small bit."

"Good."

Hammond thought of his next move, and remembered an experiment in the list of experiments Trace had been focusing on.

"How bout this? We work on one experiment- just one- and then you get some sleep. Deal?" he extended a hand, and Trace squeezed it without shaking it.

"Deal."

 

"Nine... Five... Three... Seven..." Hammond mumbled as he turned the dials to their required settings. Taking one last look at his clipboard to make sure he hadn't made an error, he walked through the hall to the computer room.

"Trace," he said, opening the door. "You can turn on the beam now."

No response. Hammond frowned.

"Trace?"

He walked over to the seat where Trace was sitting in, and nearly tapped his shoulder until he heard it.

A single, loud snore.

Trace's face faced the ceiling and he laid back in the chair. His mouth was wide open, and his eyes looked peaceful for once. His hands were still on the keyboard, fingers positioned over some number keys.

Hammond smiled and gently pushed Trace's hands onto his lap, and draped his lab coat over Trace like a blanket. He turned off the computer so that the light wouldn't bother Trace, and sat on a nearby chair as he filled in a vacation request form he had on hand.

At the sound of a second snore, he turned to Trace and his smile disappeared.

"I wish you would stop doing this to yourself," he said out loud.

**Author's Note:**

> Little behind-the-scenes thing: This was originally going to end with a variant snapping Athetos out of a daydream, with the daydream being the entirety of this fic. Since it included bits of information from only Hammond's perspective, I scrapped that, and also because I thought it was nicer leaving it on Hammond's quote.


End file.
